


Autumn Child

by Sholio



Series: Guardians of Fairyland [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Gen, Halloween, Samhain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:47:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11846163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Stay inside on Halloween Night,Peter's mother always told him. But she never told him why.





	Autumn Child

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my trope-bingo "Fairy Tale/Myth" square. I've always loved the Wild Hunt, and the fierce, terrifying fairy/elven folk of Celtic/Scandinavian/Germanic myth.
> 
> Now with [AMAZING FANART](http://daryshkart.tumblr.com/post/164497938229/laylainalaska-or-sholiofic-wrote-an-amazing) by daryshkart!! (See end of fic.)

_Stay inside on Halloween Night,_ Peter's mother always told him.

He was never allowed to go trick'or'treating. As the sun began to set, she brought him in, locked all the doors and closed the curtains. Her porch light was never on. They did not have a jack'o'lantern; his mother wouldn't have them in the house.

He knew a few other kids at school whose parents were a little bit weird about Halloween because they worried about Satanism and devil worship. But his mom wasn't super religious about anything else. She didn't even mind him watching Halloween specials on TV. She watched the Charlie Brown one with him every year and laughed harder than he did. Most of the time she was a normal mom. But Halloween, some things about Halloween, she was weird about.

She didn't allow him a lot of candy most of the year, but she made sure he woke up on Nov. 1 to find a bowl of candy in the living room, all for him. It was her way of making up for not letting him dress up like a ghost or a mummy and go out with the other kids. And it sort of made up for it ... sort of. He still wished he knew what it was like.

His mom caught him trying to slip out the window once, just once, when he was six. He'd been gazing longingly out his illicitly pushed-open bedroom curtains at the other little witches and ghosts running in laughing packs down their small-town Missouri street. And he thought, maybe he could just slip out for a little while, and slip back in ...

His mom caught him halfway out the window. She yanked him back inside and flung him onto the bed before slamming the window. Her face was white with such a strange mix of fury and terror that Peter was scared out of his wits. All he could do was stare up at her.

"Stay there," she told him in a voice that hardly sounded like her own. She marched downstairs and came back a minute later with a hammer and a handful of nails. She pounded his window shut, all the while wearing that white look of fear.

Peter started to cry.

"Oh, baby." His mom gathered him up in her arms. "Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's only, I'm afraid if you go out there, your daddy will come and take you away." 

She never, ever talked about Peter's father. Not ever. Peter was startled out of his tears, staring up at her. "Mama, who --"

He didn't get any farther; she clapped her hand over his mouth. "Don't ask those questions, Peter. Not tonight, of all nights. I'll tell you later when you're older. But _not tonight."_

That terrifying mix of anger and fear was back in her voice, turning her from his gentle mother into an almost-cruel stranger. All Peter could do was nod, as fresh tears sprang to his eyes above her hand.

His mother whispered apologies and kissed him, wiping away his tears. All he could do was cling to her, as frightened by the change in her as by the things she wouldn't talk about. She brushed a lock of hair off his sweat-damp forehead. "Come on, baby. Do you want to come and lay in bed with me and we can tell each other ghost stories?"

Peter nodded. He slept that night snuggled up against his mom, waking, as he often did on Halloween nights, to listen to the shrieking of kids and teenagers that went on long into the night, and the barking of distant dogs.

There were a lot of barking dogs that night, it seemed like.

In the morning the bowl of candy was on the table and his mom acted as if nothing had happened, though his window was still nailed shut, a whole row of crooked nails, where just one or two would have done. He wanted to ask about his dad again, but he was afraid of stirring up that angry stranger instead of his mom. So he put it off, and put it off.

And then his mom got sick, between one Halloween and the next. She was buried on a chilly October day, while Peter huddled between his grandparents and red-orange leaves swirled down onto the grass. He had wanted to bring his Walkman, to have something comforting, at least, but his grandparents made him leave it in the car.

He went to live with his grandparents on their farm. No more familiar bedroom with its nailed-shut window. No more sun-bright kitchen; no more table with its bowl of Halloween candy; no more of the house where he'd lived with Mom for all of his eight years, or of his mother, ever again. He had a new bedroom that used to be his mom's when she was a little girl, with a white dresser for his clothes that had obviously belonged to a girl. His Walkman looked lonely on top of it. His grandparents had helped him pack all his toys, but he didn't really want them. His He-Man figures and Transformers cars languished in boxes in the closet.

Halloween came two weeks after his mother's death.

His grandparents, unlike his mom, had a jack'o'lantern that Peter helped carve, temporarily roused out of his grief with delight at the unfamiliar tradition. They also had a lot of weird little rituals and superstitions. There were horseshoes hanging over almost every door on the farm. His grandmother, who still had a soft Welsh lilt to her voice, picked different herbs and wove them into garlands that she hung over the windows. She always put a dish of milk on the back step at night -- for the fairy-folk, she told Peter, though he was pretty sure it was the farm cats that got it.

He didn't ask about going trick'or'treating and they didn't offer. Peter couldn't tell, and couldn't quite bring himself to ask: did they _know_ about his mom's weird Halloween thing? Did they know about his dad?

But they didn't talk about it, and Halloween night came just like a normal night. They didn't try to keep him inside, at least. He went around doing the nighttime chores with his grandpa in the gathering twilight, with a silver moonrise on the horizon. The animals were restless, the cows all huddled in the barn and the cats nowhere to be seen.

"You best put out some extra milk out tonight, Jean," his grandfather said as they came back in, shaking off the cold. "Gonna be a hard night."

His grandmother went through the by-now-familiar tradition of pouring out the milk into the saucer on the doorstep. Peter watched her close the door, and he struggled with his grief-frozen tongue before he finally began, "Grandma, do you know --?"

"Not now, Pete," his grandmother told him. "Go upstairs to bed now."

Okay, that was just unfair. His bedtime wasn't 'til nine and it was hardly seven-thirty yet. Mom was weird about Halloween, but she didn't make him go to bed so cruelly early, even then. All his desperate grief and unspoken questions tangled up in his throat until what came out was, "No."

"Don't you sass your grandma, boy," his grandfather said.

A long time later, Peter would understand how much pain his grandparents were dealing with, too, having lost their only daughter. But that was beyond the ken of a grieving eight-year-old. He balled up his fists. "You're not my mom! You can't make me!"

He ended up getting spanked (gently, as these things went, but his mom had never spanked him), and sent crying to bed.

His grandfather knocked on the door a little later. It cracked open; his grandfather's face, drawn with sorrow and regret, peered inside. Peter huddled under the covers in a ball of misery and fury, the Walkman headphones clamped over his ears, and pretended to be asleep until his grandfather closed the door and he heard the old farmer's slow, heavy footsteps retreat down the hallway.

Then he sat up and swung his legs out of bed, fully clothed.

He got his school backpack out of the closet. He wasn't sure what he might need: his Walkman, of course, and a couple extra T-shirts. A flashlight, a candy bar he was saving for later, a couple of his lucky toys. A notebook and pencil. His wallet with the ten bucks he'd gotten for his birthday. The present from his mom, still unopened, because he would never, ever leave _that_ behind.

A picture of his mom and the picture of David Hasselhoff he always carried. Couldn't leave _that_ behind.

He didn't quite dare to say the words _running away_ to himself, as if his grandparents could hear him thinking. 

Instead he waited through agonizing hours until the sounds of the TV turned off downstairs, the water running in the pipes gurgled away, and the house was silent. Then he cracked the door open and peeked out into the hallway. All the lights were off, but moonlight lay in a block on the floor. The moon was almost full.

Peter crept downstairs, avoiding the steps he'd learned would creak. There was no bowl of candy on the table, just the usual bowl of fruit. His grandparents were annoying that way; they said sugar would spoil his teeth. He took an apple and a leftover dinner roll, stuffing them into his backpack.

For a minute or two, he thought about leaving a note, but it would probably be along the lines of _You'll all be sorry!_ and he decided not to.

Rubbing his eyes with his fist, feeling very friendless and alone, he unlatched the backdoor and slipped out into the night.

He had never been outside on a Halloween night before. In town it would have been different; there would have been porch lights gleaming up and down the street, jack'o'lanterns on the steps, children running in the street and parents calling after them. But the farm was dark and silent. A ragged wisp of cloud trailed over the moon. Wind lashed the trees and sent leaves pattering down like footsteps. Peter jumped.

He was starting to rethink this plan.

But he couldn't lose his nerve now. He _wouldn't._

_They'll all be sorry!_

He stepped carefully across the dish of milk -- still full -- and trotted down the steps, through his grandma's herb garden with everything tucked in for the winter, past the old farm truck, and down the driveway. 

His grandparents' farm had a winding driveway with tree branches hanging over it. He'd run down the driveway every schoolday since moving here, but now it seemed strange and alien, patterned in black and silver moon shadows. When dead leaves landed on his collar, he flinched.

Far off, he heard farm dogs barking and howling, the usual night music of rural farm country. Tonight it made him shiver. It sounded like wolves.

There weren't still wolves in Missouri, were there?

Of course not.

He came out on the road and breathed a sigh of relief. Now he had a decision to make. His grandparents' farm was just a couple of miles from the town where he'd lived all his life. If he walked that way, he'd eventually, after a lot of walking, come to the little downtown with the True Value Hardware and Mike's Feed Store and the Dairy Queen and the other places he'd been.

If he went the other way ...

He had no idea what was the other way.

He turned and looked down the road. It looked white in the moonlight, like bone, as it curved out of sight, skirted by stands of trees and marching fence posts. There were railroad tracks that way, Peter knew. Sometimes you heard the trains in the night, a lonesome whistle sobbing away to silence. 

He didn't know what else was that way. Farms, probably. Maybe more towns.

Maybe his dad.

Peter turned, and resolutely started marching away from all he knew, off of what was, for him, the edge of the earth.

After a little while, he pulled his headphones up and pressed PLAY. The music started up in the middle of "Cherry Bomb." That was good walking music. He set his footsteps to it. And it drowned out the distant, barking dogs, the rattle of the tree branches alongside the road, and the lonely crunch of the gravel under his sneakers as he walked on the road's shoulder.

He stopped to knock a rock out of his shoe, pushing the headphones down. As he pulled his shoe back on, he realized that things had changed somehow.

He wasn't quite sure how at first. The night seemed very still and hushed. The dogs were no longer barking. It was, for a moment, like he was the only living thing in the world -- and suddenly he became aware that he was very young, and very alone, and running away from home.

Then the howling started, very close to him, and he jumped hard.

_Dogs,_ he told himself. _It's just dogs._

But dogs could be pretty scary when you were all alone and eight years old. He still remembered being chased by his school friend Annie's farm dogs when he had gone over to her house to play when he was seven. They had big dogs that weren't very nice and liked to knock down little kids.

Mom always used to say that if you met a stray dog, you should not pet it and you should not run. You should back away slowly, and go tell an adult.

Peter started to edge carefully along the side of the road, as the howling got louder, and he became aware of an odd shivering underfoot, like a big truck was coming.

And he thought: _Back away slowly to WHERE?_

That was when his nerve broke and he started to run.

He didn't know where he was running to, just that he didn't want to be here. He ran down the side of the road, Walkman headphones bouncing around his neck, the backpack jouncing against his spine.

He ran with all the strength of a terrified eight-year-old boy who didn't really believe wolves still lived in Missouri, but, on some level, couldn't quite believe that the howls were just dogs.

But they _were_ dogs, he discovered when they came loping out of the woods alongside the road. They were big, shaggy dogs with long legs and deep chests, but not wolves, definitely dogs. They had long plumed tails and floppy ears. However, they didn't look like friendly dogs. Their tongues lolled out of their mouths from running, but they were not smiling and their tails were not wagging.

They surrounded Peter and forced him off the road, into the edge of the woods.

"No, no," Peter sobbed, out of breath, choking as he tried to suck air into his aching lungs.

And then a sharp whistle sounded, the kind that called dogs to heel. And the dogs responded, falling back from Peter -- but something else did, as well.

A burning arrow swooped out of the woods and came to hover just in front of his face, forcing Peter to stumble to a halt to avoid being impaled.

Which was when the riders arrived.

Horses came clattering out of the woods, came galloping down the embankment from the road. Each of them had a rider, and the riders were absolutely terrifying. Peter stared, as well as he could around the arrow, which hung in front of his eyes, burning with a cold fire. The riders were all different; one had curling ram's horns, some had claws, some had cloven hooves shoved into their stirrups. They wore a mix of patchy, mismatched armor, furs, sundry helmets. Some carried bows, others held swords or spears, but all were armed.

They rode around and around Peter with wild cries, only to fall back as a big black horse came charging down the embankment. The horse's eyes were red, and so were the rider's, gleaming like coals. He, it ... whatever it was, Peter was half out of his mind with terror by now ... wore a stag's skull with a branching pair of antlers, reaching towards the moon-bright sky. A ragged cloak that looked black in the moonlight (but was actually the color of dried blood, Peter would realize later, when he'd learned all too well what dried blood looked like) flowed over the horse's haunches. 

It was obvious from the way the others settled down, reining in their horses, that the rider of the black horse, he who wore the stag's antlers, was their leader. When he smiled, jagged teeth flashed white in the moonlight, serrated like the teeth of a wolf.

"Well, what's the Wild Hunt caught now, boys? Looks like a l'il human! What you doin' out on All Hallow's Eve, boy? Don't you know, whatever the Hunt catches on the last night of the year, is ours? Don't humans train their own kids proper nowadays?"

Peter could only choke on his own terror. At another short, sharp whistle, the arrow drilled closer to his face. The dogs growled.

"What do we do with humans when we catch 'em, boys?"

"Eat 'em!" came the answering roar.

"No!" Peter yelped. "I -- I'm looking for my father!"

The other hunters let out a yell of jeering triumph, full of mocking laughter. But Peter was looking at their leader, and their leader had stopped smiling.

"Are you, now," he murmured, and urged his horse forward with nudges of his knees until it loomed over Peter. The horse, Peter saw, had wolf's teeth as well, lips drawn back as if to bite him. 

"What you got of your daddy's, boy?"

"Wh -- what?" Peter asked, staring up at him.

The stag-horned rider gave a sharp whistle and the arrow obediently spun around and glided back to rest in the holster at his side. Despite his terror, Peter followed it with his eyes; he couldn't help thinking how cool it was. He wanted one of those.

"You come lookin' for your daddy, you got a token of his? Somethin' he gave you?"

The funny thing was, the way he asked it, he sounded serious -- like an adult talking to another adult, not like an adult talking to kids.

Peter didn't know how to answer. He didn't have anything of his daddy's. His mom wouldn't even tell him who he was, and now she -- now she -- 

He blinked, hard, forcing back tears. And then he thought of something, and he swung his pack around to bump at his side.

It was a weird, weird thing to have all those fierce, armed riders on their horses, all their fierce dogs, watching him in a hush as he dug around in his backpack until he finally found the right pocket and the right folded piece of paper. Taking it out, unfolding it, he held it up.

"This is my dad," he said defiantly, just like he'd said to bullies on the schoolyard, brandishing the picture of David Hasselhoff like the talisman that, for him, it was.

(Only later in his life did he come to realize how true that actually was.)

The stag-horned rider stared at the picture for a moment with his gleaming red eyes, and then he laughed in a flash of jagged teeth, and he leaned forward, quicker than thought. Peter gave a sharp, shocked yelp as a powerful hand seized his collar; he just barely managed to hang onto both backpack and photo as he was hauled into the air and deposited in front of the rider, straddling the horse's shoulders. There was no saddle, just a rough blanket. Peter had only ridden a horse a couple of times, but he _did_ grow up in farm country, and he was pretty sure there was supposed to be a saddle. He didn't know what was keeping them from just falling off the horse.

The rider put a big arm around Peter, resting his fingers in his horse's mane. The horses weren't wearing bridles either, Peter realized.

"Well, boy. You got some guts to ya." The raspy voice vibrated through Peter's chest, pressed as he was to his captor's front, and he tipped his head back. All he could see was the moon framed between the stag horns. "Want to ride with the Wild Hunt tonight?"

Peter was too shocked and confused to speak, and the rider seemed to take his silence for ascent. The horse leaped forward, _all_ the horses leaped forward. Tree branches lashed Peter's face like stinging switches and then the horse was stretched out in a full gallop, its great muscles bunching and relaxing under him. The rider held him securely in place, and Peter clung to his backpack, scared out of his mind and, at the same time, more exhilarated than he'd ever been in his life.

A few hours hence, after a night of riding, he would be deposited in a bruised, shivering heap in front of a fireplace in what he would eventually realize was another place entirely (not Earth, not at all), there to sleep like the dead, huddled with a bunch of wolfhound pups, for hours before being kicked awake by another, older child to learn what it was to be a servant of the Wild Hunt. 

And years from now, he would have fought his way to the front of the pack and he would have his own horse and his own sword, and he'd ride the October night with the rest of those who had become, through no choice of his own, his kin and fellow hunters. But he never forgot that first ride, never forgot that feeling of terror knotting up with delight into a hot ball in his chest, swelling and filling him until he felt he would burst. Never forgot the feeling of Yondu's strong arm -- half safety, half prison -- wrapped around him, holding him on the horse as they coursed through the October forest under the moon.

* * *

Check out this incredible art by the amazing [daryshkart](http://daryshkart.tumblr.com/):

Go tell her how awesome it is! [Art 1](http://daryshkart.tumblr.com/post/164497938229/laylainalaska-or-sholiofic-wrote-an-amazing) | [Art 2](http://daryshkart.tumblr.com/post/164801413564/a-companion-drawing-for-the-fae-yondu-from-the)

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, as I started writing this, I realized this could easily grow into a whole novel-length AU. This installment stands alone, but depending upon inspiration, stay tuned for the story of how Peter discovered that trees in fairyland can talk (and sometimes come with incredibly sarcastic talking raccoons), or the tale of Peter and the Winter King's [adopted] Daughter (and her knife made of ice, and how, having learned that songs can be currency among fairyfolk, Peter tried to get her to dance).


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